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About this paper

In the mountains and valleys of Tajikistan, a landlocked country in central Asia, poor and marginalized communities are struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change.

Unseasonal rains, rising temperatures and climate extremes are hitting poor people hardest, and eroding their livelihoods.

As part of an ongoing climate change campaign, Oxfam conducted research into how the Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) funds have been allocated in Tajikistan, linking to a global initiative intended to hold to account those organizations mandated to manage climate investment funds.

The PPCR is one of the Climate Investment Funds; financing instruments designed to pilot low-carbon and climate-resilient development through the multilateral development banks under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Tajikistan is one of eight countries and regions that are part of the PPCR process. Over the course of 2010, staff and consultants from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development have been visiting Tajikistan to determine, alongside the government, how US$50 million could be spent to pilot climate resilient development.

While this new investment of funds is clearly widely welcomed, the research found a range of views about the way the US$50 million PPCR money has been allocated in Tajikistan. Many commentators felt that small holder farmers and households headed by women – some of those most vulnerable to climate change – have so far been left out of consultations and potential benefits.

This report makes recommendations around the future of climate change investments to ensure that they benefit the poorest and most vulnerable people living in rural areas. Above all, it highlights that the most vulnerable communities must have an equal say in the governance of adaptation funds required to deliver their needs.

Key recommendations from the report:

More transparent and inclusive processes are needed to determine how climate change investments are decided, particularly in how they seek to represent the views of the rural poor.

Climate change investments should reflect the needs of those who will be most vulnerable to climate change – in Tajikistan this means small food producers who go hungry when their crops fail.

Climate change investments need to be inclusive to the needs of both women and men. For example in Tajikistan many small food producers are women, as men have often migrated for work. Initiatives to help farmers learn new techniques should be planned in a way that reflects the needs of women.

Investments need to include building the capacity of government staff to manage climate change adaptation.

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